Travels

Random travel moments

jimjam1 — Thu, 2 Apr 2015 01:01:00 GMT

COPENHAGEN TO GOLD COAST:

I did not think you could take animals onto an aircraft. Last December, on my first leg back to Australia I noticed a man with a cute little kitten checking in. The flight to Paris as the engines reved up to take off, one row behind me all I could here a scared little cat meowing its head off, and for most of the flight too. Very cute!

Australia

jimjam1 — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:23:00 GMT

Seeing my home finally and seeing the Great Dividing Range

Western Ghats-Wayanad District-Ooty

jimjam1 — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:26:00 GMT

Kalpetta is our choice of place in South Wayanad. It only took another 3 buses today. Thankfully the hotel is nice and we have good showers. Cold but nice. One thing that was I noticed the way the Indian people are so enthusiastic towards foreigners embracing their ways. Its quite the task trying to eat your food while the whole restaurant is sitting and stareing but this is almost always the case. As soon as I began eating lunch with my fingers the restaurant owner was so happy and was saying 'thankyou, thankyou' over and over and kept coming over with more and more things to try and would stand and watch you untill you tried it and of course gave its approval.

Today we went on our trip around the sanctuary. We hired a jeep and driver and were up bright and early at 5am. Just as I was starting to give up hope, we finally spotted two large Wild Elephants and its baby calf. So cute. We unfortunately did not get to see any leopards which Jon was most upset about! The never ending rolling hills of tea farms were really cool too!

Today we moved on to a little town called Ooty in the Western Ghats of the state of Tamil Nadu. Ooty about 2,500 metres above sea level and was really Picturesque. On our walk around the town we started chatting to a couple of people. One local guy called Benny who fell in love with Emelie, who was 19 and wanted to show us around the town the next day and the surrounding areas. It was nice and another guy named Sharan, who mostly now lives in the US, who also fell in love with Emelie was going to show us around too. I did not know what to make of Sharan as he was saying alot of crazy things about how he owns this and works here and saves this but it turned out he was pretty ledgit, well almost. He took us to one of his 'projects' that he was working on in the beautiful hills in the middle of nowhere about 1 hour from Ooty. On the way he was stopping and chatting to everyone. Foremans of building sites and managers, he stopped to take someones blood pressure as the man could not afford to go to the doctor. (his blood pressure was over 400 by the way) When we finally got to his little bungalow that he was building in the hills it was so beautiful. He had a few locals working for him, including this sweet little girl who would translate the Tamil to English for him.

It can get rather hard in India, even for Indians as there is about 13 different languages in the country and most have no similarities whatsoever! Sharan was fighting the loggers from Sri Lanka by keeping a close watch and planting more trees. He was doing all this 'as he didin't have a real job.' Supposedly he had a number of projects like this here and in the US. Wether that was true or not, his little bungalow was so spectacular as well as the area including the beautiful waterfall close by, where we spent alot of our time.

Indians, especially the country ones are so pleasant and peaceful. They have nothing, lots of them but they are happy it seems. As we went for a little walk through the hills alot of the locals would come out of their little huts and houses just to see you and say hello. The kids would always wave and say hello, as well as the adults. Its different state to state but none so obvious in this area. They love getting their photo taken just because some have never seen or used a camera and they just want to see themselves on the camera I guess. These huts were always so impressively spotless inside which was always so amazing. Sweeping the dust away with their home made duster!

Today we made our way towards the coast again so we left Ooty on a little steam train down the 2,500 metres with some amazing picturesque scenery. We eventually, after a bus ride arrived at Coimbatore where we would catch the over night sleeper train to the backwaters of Kollam back in Kerala. I suggested to use the sleeper class on the train but as I learnt that night that sometimes you were lucky with the conditions on that class and sometimes you were not and on that journey, we were not. The bed was quite filthy and unfortunately my late night trip to the toilet was not too pleasant as the smell was so over powering, I was overcome and I vomited. Not good!

Goa, Karnataka and getting to Wayanad.

jimjam1 — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:15:00 GMT

We did the tourist drag today and then decided to get down to Goa as our other friends, Britt and Jon were about 10 days from the end of their India trip and we wanted to meet up with them. So down to Goa we go.

In Goa we are staying in a little town called Benaulim which is right on the water and it is beautiful but it is boring and full of older people so we met up wit Britt and Jon and made our plan to leave today. We have decided to make our way down heading to Kerala which is two states down.

We are staying a night in Gokarna which is right on the coast of the state of Karnataka. We are staying right on the beach in this little shack. Big bed for Jon and Britt a single for Emelie and the floor for me. That was untill I saw this very scary looking centipede thing with some big claws at the end. I got paranoid it was going to crawl into my ear so it was a very uncomfortable night for Em and I on the tiny bed but atleast I was not deafened by that creature!

Today we made our way down the coast to the City of Mangalore on the coast just before the state of Kerala. From there we made our way inland. India is described in alot of different ways. It inspires, thrills, opens your eyes, unpredictable. Today could only be described as Frustrating ( but we had to take some of the blame- thinking that Wayanad was a town when infact its a whole district, and we did learn something this day) We got to the Mangalore bus station wanting to get to Wayanad. Nearby being plenty of wildlife parks and sanctuary's and a good chance of seeing Wild Elephants! The man we ask, who works there, pointed at the bus right in front of us and on we got. It was a fun drive, mostly all of it on dirt, does not stop the bus drivers driving like the bus is out of control. You are always happy to get to your destination alive. It seems like the buses have right of way of anything else and that's including while they are driving on the wrong side of the road!

About 2 hours into the ride the bus stops in this tiny village, literally 20 people living there and the bus man just shouts out 'Wayanad!' Before we knew it we were out the bus. Asking for our change the man just says 'no change......' Thanks mate!

It was so, so hot here and we were so lost. Indians are so helpful and genuinally want to help and this is exactly what happened. They looked at our map and tried to show us where we were, pointing down somewhere right near the south of Kerala (the bottom of India). I dont think they knew where In India they actually lived. Eventually they put us on a bus supposedly to Wayanad. This day turned out to be 10 hours of switcing buses not really knowing 100% if each one was correct. 10pm came and we decided to give up for the day and we stayed in a horrible little hotel in a place called 'Kutta.' All that driving and we did not even reach Wayanad and to make it worse this hotel had no showers. So that was a nice sticky night for all.

Thankfully, Britt had a little GPS on her phone and we could see that we were close to Wayanad. We then realised after reading more of the lonely planet that Wayanad was a district and not a town so when we were asking people for help they were telling us different places within the considerably large Wayanad district! Deeeer, stupid us! We also learnt it was very important to say the word, Direct. If you did not you were under the illusion that the bus you were right on there and then would take you to the destination when infact the bus will just drop you off somewhere randomly and then you had to figure out for yourself the connecting bus. Valuable lesson :)

Delhi and Rishikesh

jimjam1 — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 05:45:00 GMT

My mate Dave did the online blog thing when we were on a previous trip through the USA and part of Central America and I always took the piss, as everything that happened on our trip he would say "thats going on the blog" in his strong South English Geezer accent. Maybe I took the piss as most of the time I had done something stupid (he thought) and I did not want everyone on the internet reading about it. Nevertheless I have come round to the idea mostly beause I feel I would actually read it after the trip, not like other trips I have done and wrote in the hand written journal from time to time and then never looked through it again. So here it is....

My trip is through India. March to June. Three months worth. So the first thing I should say is that this county is huge and often difficult, mostly frustrating to get around. It takes time to travel so I have already realised that three months is no way going to be long enough. That, and of course that some places that you visit you love so much you do not want to leave. That has happened to me at my first place which is Rishikesh-love, love, love it!

When I first reached India I had only literally landed (only the back wheels of the plane) in Delhi when the first manic sign I had heard about of India showed itself. The plane was still on the runway when all of a sudden everyone on the plane (all locals) just got up and started reaching for bags and pushing and shoving, the air stewards pushing them back shouting "sit down, sit down!" As I left the airport which was about 8pm I could not stop smiling. The smell, the people, cars beeping, hectic! Straight away I got that feeling of being in such a different country of where I am from and I am travelling again :)

Pahar Ganj was where I was staying In New Delhi where I was meeting my friend Dani. The walk from the train station, where the taxi dropped me off to the hotel was just amazing. The noise, smell, touts, beggars, kids playing cricket, rubbish, people brushing the dust and rubbish away to where? I do not know, little side stores selling fruit, clothes, cows, all kinds of things and rickshaws (tuk tuks) everywere. Everyone wanting to talk to me. The hotel was shabby and in the middle of two streets within these tiny, dark alley ways. The first full day in India was Holy day where everyone throws coloured paints at each other. I was covered in paint. A local man said something to me wich I thought was really nice. "Happy Holy."he said. I said it back to him and he replied by saying. "Are you happy?" I replied "yes." So he replied "Good, enjoy this moment."

Delhi was a cool city but I was happy to leave the next day on the sleeper train overnight to Rishikesh in the state of Uttarakhand

Rishikesh is one of the main places to go for the spirtual side of things. Ashrams, yoga (yoga capital of the world), meditation, gateway of trekking in the Himalayas and of course the Ganges. Also, of course the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram where the Beatles stayed in the late 60s. I stayed in Lakshman Jula on the Nortern Jula (bridge). The first thing I have noticed arriving early in the morning and crossing the hanging bridge was the massive power of the wind coming off the mountains and down the Ganges. It was like Mother Ganga was showing off her immense power. The sound of bells clanging and chanting of devotees which also happens in the evening was quite something and I will never forget it. Something that was very apparent to me staying at Rishikesh is as each day is passing I am loving it more and more.

My days consist of going to the 10am Satsang with Guru Prem Baba who is from Brasil. It starts off with about 100 people all sitting and singing with instruments for about 30mins. Most of the time I did not know the words but that does not matter at all. Prem Baba has an amazing presence and he just talks about enlightenment, stories, answering letters that people write to him asking him questions about spirituality or anything really, using his translator. It finishes with more singing or a gift of food which we would all take turn in collecting off him. Every day I goI enjoy it more and more. After that we eat at the Ashram, for free. Dani and I then go down and sit at the Ganges for a while. My first dip in the Ganga was really cool, it was bloody freezing too! Then drinking Chai tea and watching the sun go down over the Ganges with the bells and chanting in the backround once more. Brilliant!

Today was a strange one. After Prem Baba, I was in the local shop buying some water and all of a sudden a local man, dressed in mostly black, tried to touch my forehead as well as Dani's head. He was trying to put black magic onto us. I then went to a coffee shop and this woman who looked and sounded very English came and sat next to me and begun telling me that she was hypnotized and everything she said was not her and it was a spirit, so not to listen to her..... wha? She asked what my plan was in the next two years? So I told her and she then got her little pebbles out and threw them on the table and then insisted in telling me what I should do. She said I should live in India and study through correspondance from a UK university. If I mentioned her name at the bank of England I would not even have to pay, I would be granted a scholarship! Excellent! As I made my escape her last words to me were, 'Also, if I tell you that I am a male, do not believe me as thats the spirit just talking and I cannot help what I say.'

One other character who I will never forget is a particular lady at the Prem Baba Satsungs. The first time I just heard alot of screaming and at first I thought it was just a baby but I then I saw a lady bending over. The second time was very strange as we were all singing at the end, she walked passed me with people aiding her. She was making noises I can only describe as those similar to the little girl out of the Exorcist when she is possessed, her eyes rolling back and then she made her way to the balcony, bends over and it was almost as if she was coughing out a ''spirit." The third time was much of the same. It was all a little strange and maybe funny.

I have seen some strange things that Westerners do in Holy places. It has become clear which I kind of already knew. It does seem that India does attract alot of lost or strange individuals who seem just to get caught up in it all just a bit too much. I love the spirtual side of India in Rishikesh but there are indeed some over fanatic, Western people. Apart from that I did meet some other really great people in Rishikesh such as Acacia, who has inspired me to take my spirtual life deeper and another Guru actually from the States who was attracted to my turtle necklace for some reason that my brother, Cameron gave to me.

I really did not want to leave but my friend Emelie was due in Delhi the next day so I was excited to see her so I left Rishikesh.

Photos: India

jimjam1 — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 08:24:00 GMT