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 :)
