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Getting to Goa...
Returning to Chennai we stayed once again with Krishna and his family enjoying his mum's excellent South Indian cooking. We were lucky enough to be there for the Pongal festival, a three day Hindu farmers festival celebrating the harvest. As it's the most important festival in South India pretty much everything closes down, rituals such as eating the Pongal (sweet rice) take place and the women all get brand new saris. We celebrated Pongal by having a "pot luck" lunch followed by a few competitive rounds of bingo with Krishnas family, neighbours and friends. Thanks again Krishna, and thanks for answering our endless list of questions!
Before we got too comfortable we decided to keep moving and make tracks back through Bangalore and north on to Hampi. Once the capital of the Hindu empire,Vijayanagara, who ruled the south India during 14th to 16th century AD. The ruins of Hampi, as it is known today, is a vast open museum of history, architecture and religion set in the middle of a boulder strewn landscape. We didn't know too much about Hampi before getting there, only that it was a big stop on the backpacking circuit, this was very obvious by the number the guesthouses and roof top restaurants crammed into the back streets of Hampi bizarre. A stroll outside the commercialism quickly brings you out into 25 square kilometers of ancient temples, palaces, market streets and other monuments. What's endearing about Hampi is that the ruins are impressive and spread out over a large area making the area surreal. It's hard to imagine just how impressive all the structures were in their heyday. Vittala Temple was the most impressive, its halls are noted for their extraordinary carved pillars and huge stone chariot complete with wheels. A set of pillars, known as 'musical pillars,' resonates when tapped. The temple supposedly had 56 pillars, each with 16 smaller pillars which produced different notes and sounds. During performances all 56 musical pillars were played together, accompanied by dancers. If you dare touch the pillars today you can expect a customary slap on the wrist whistle from the security guards.
Catching a bus West we travelled back to the coast to the temple town of Gokarna. Lying just below Goa this town gets the lots of visitors spilling down for the attraction of it's undeveloped beach tucked away around a headland - far away from touts and hawkers. The town itself is a pleasant little place lined with wooden shops and bustling with backpackers - it's been a while since we've seen so many fisherman pants. Although attracted by the beach we decided to push on up into Goa and relax there for a couple of days.
Every one has heard of Goa - which is surprising, given just how small this state is. Hundreds of thousands of tourists come here each year to soak up the sun, roam around the old colonial buildings and Churches and sample the fiery Goan cuisine. As a former Portuguese colony the interior of Goa has many charming old towns with ornate mansions. Along the coast are the long sandy beaches, made famous first by the overland hippies of the 70s - the busiest now frequented by package tourists from Europe. Thankfully there still are some quiet spots left - although for how much longer that remains to be seen.
Our first beach stop was Palolem Beach where we hopped off a bus in the middle of a busy street lined with stalls selling sarongs, jewellery, cushion covers etc. We were immediately faced with two options - either to go straight to the beach to procure a romantic beach side hut amidst the palm trees or take a look around town and find a room in a guesthouse. Experience has put us in category number two - the "romantic" novelty of wicker walls, no electricity, sand in everything, rickety steps and an agonising trek across a muddy yard and across a yucky drain to the communal tin bathroom in the middle of the night just isn't pleasant and never was. Well... not when you can be 2 minutes away tucked up within in a proper guesthouse with solid walls with your en suite bathroom and balcony. Some places in this world may have fantastic beach huts but most we've seen are more like shanty towns that have been knocked together at the start of the season. There's no shortage of people clamoring to secure a hut for the week. Palolem Beach's small scale, lack of big high rise hotel developments, idyllic palm fringed beach and laid back atmosphere made it a lovely place to stop for a few days to read a book and enjoy beach life. After a couple of days of "western food" we were ready to sample some spicy Goan cuisine - so it was time to hit the towns where the real Goan's live far away from the toned down menus.
Panjim is the capital of Goa, a beautiful old city with the most overpriced, repulsive accommodation we've seen so far. Arriving mid afternoon we began our usual search seeing absolute dives at mega buck prices. Just when we thought we'd have to hit an all time high on the sleeping expenditure we found something that "sufficed". Marcus came back to me with a grim look asking "Do you remember the movie Seven ..... well some of the scenes we filmed in this guesthouse." Grim is an understatement, for the remainder of the visit the object of the exercise was to spend the least amount of time in the room - the story has a silver lining though as we found fantastic restaurant cooking up proper Goan food. If we could go back there for food tonight we would in a heartbeat.
Heading north we stopped in Anjuna for a couple of days. A chilling beach wind that whipped up the sand wasn't exactly conducive to sunbathing. Those that did brave the beach shared it with the local bovine population. You never do get used to cows weaving their way through the sunbeds feasting on banana skins and pineapple shells. Sadly Anjuna beach didn't host a fantastic array of seafood, and most of the menus were of the "chips and egg" variety so we decided to push on to Mumbai. We did hang around long enough to take in the colourful weekly market which draws huge crowds of tourists each week. It's an amusing spectacle where you can carefully pick out a couple of tasteful goods and leave satisfied or get completely carried away and buy heaps of junk that you'll unpack at home and wonder what the hell you were thinking. If you've even the slightest urge to chill a little, let go of inhibitions and buy a hippy teeshirt then there's a very good chance you'll come away with an entire tie dye wardrobe including a suede gun belt. Fortunately our small bags limit any good or bad decision making when it comes to markets so we left as light as we arrived.
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Before we got too comfortable we decided to keep moving and make tracks back through Bangalore and north on to Hampi. Once the capital of the Hindu empire,Vijayanagara, who ruled the south India during 14th to 16th century AD. The ruins of Hampi, as it is known today, is a vast open museum of history, architecture and religion set in the middle of a boulder strewn landscape. We didn't know too much about Hampi before getting there, only that it was a big stop on the backpacking circuit, this was very obvious by the number the guesthouses and roof top restaurants crammed into the back streets of Hampi bizarre. A stroll outside the commercialism quickly brings you out into 25 square kilometers of ancient temples, palaces, market streets and other monuments. What's endearing about Hampi is that the ruins are impressive and spread out over a large area making the area surreal. It's hard to imagine just how impressive all the structures were in their heyday. Vittala Temple was the most impressive, its halls are noted for their extraordinary carved pillars and huge stone chariot complete with wheels. A set of pillars, known as 'musical pillars,' resonates when tapped. The temple supposedly had 56 pillars, each with 16 smaller pillars which produced different notes and sounds. During performances all 56 musical pillars were played together, accompanied by dancers. If you dare touch the pillars today you can expect a customary slap on the wrist whistle from the security guards.
Catching a bus West we travelled back to the coast to the temple town of Gokarna. Lying just below Goa this town gets the lots of visitors spilling down for the attraction of it's undeveloped beach tucked away around a headland - far away from touts and hawkers. The town itself is a pleasant little place lined with wooden shops and bustling with backpackers - it's been a while since we've seen so many fisherman pants. Although attracted by the beach we decided to push on up into Goa and relax there for a couple of days.
Every one has heard of Goa - which is surprising, given just how small this state is. Hundreds of thousands of tourists come here each year to soak up the sun, roam around the old colonial buildings and Churches and sample the fiery Goan cuisine. As a former Portuguese colony the interior of Goa has many charming old towns with ornate mansions. Along the coast are the long sandy beaches, made famous first by the overland hippies of the 70s - the busiest now frequented by package tourists from Europe. Thankfully there still are some quiet spots left - although for how much longer that remains to be seen.
Our first beach stop was Palolem Beach where we hopped off a bus in the middle of a busy street lined with stalls selling sarongs, jewellery, cushion covers etc. We were immediately faced with two options - either to go straight to the beach to procure a romantic beach side hut amidst the palm trees or take a look around town and find a room in a guesthouse. Experience has put us in category number two - the "romantic" novelty of wicker walls, no electricity, sand in everything, rickety steps and an agonising trek across a muddy yard and across a yucky drain to the communal tin bathroom in the middle of the night just isn't pleasant and never was. Well... not when you can be 2 minutes away tucked up within in a proper guesthouse with solid walls with your en suite bathroom and balcony. Some places in this world may have fantastic beach huts but most we've seen are more like shanty towns that have been knocked together at the start of the season. There's no shortage of people clamoring to secure a hut for the week. Palolem Beach's small scale, lack of big high rise hotel developments, idyllic palm fringed beach and laid back atmosphere made it a lovely place to stop for a few days to read a book and enjoy beach life. After a couple of days of "western food" we were ready to sample some spicy Goan cuisine - so it was time to hit the towns where the real Goan's live far away from the toned down menus.
Panjim is the capital of Goa, a beautiful old city with the most overpriced, repulsive accommodation we've seen so far. Arriving mid afternoon we began our usual search seeing absolute dives at mega buck prices. Just when we thought we'd have to hit an all time high on the sleeping expenditure we found something that "sufficed". Marcus came back to me with a grim look asking "Do you remember the movie Seven ..... well some of the scenes we filmed in this guesthouse." Grim is an understatement, for the remainder of the visit the object of the exercise was to spend the least amount of time in the room - the story has a silver lining though as we found fantastic restaurant cooking up proper Goan food. If we could go back there for food tonight we would in a heartbeat.
Heading north we stopped in Anjuna for a couple of days. A chilling beach wind that whipped up the sand wasn't exactly conducive to sunbathing. Those that did brave the beach shared it with the local bovine population. You never do get used to cows weaving their way through the sunbeds feasting on banana skins and pineapple shells. Sadly Anjuna beach didn't host a fantastic array of seafood, and most of the menus were of the "chips and egg" variety so we decided to push on to Mumbai. We did hang around long enough to take in the colourful weekly market which draws huge crowds of tourists each week. It's an amusing spectacle where you can carefully pick out a couple of tasteful goods and leave satisfied or get completely carried away and buy heaps of junk that you'll unpack at home and wonder what the hell you were thinking. If you've even the slightest urge to chill a little, let go of inhibitions and buy a hippy teeshirt then there's a very good chance you'll come away with an entire tie dye wardrobe including a suede gun belt. Fortunately our small bags limit any good or bad decision making when it comes to markets so we left as light as we arrived.
