Bali: Amed

Amed was a former fishing village in Bali. It remains relatively undiscovered as a tourist destination. It has clear turquoise water and a pebbly beach blackened by the Mt Agung volcano. There were a few bungalows and restaurants along the coast, and a few dive centres.

The most popular dive was a shipwreck dive. I didn't dive as I had a bad cold but my friend went and thought it was a pretty good spot. Good snorkelling was to be had just off the shore. There was a healthy growth of corals, it was fun swimming around with the tropical fishes, and it made it all seemed right with my world.

Jukung boats on Jemeluk Beach, Amed

We stayed in a room by the beach looking on to the sea, newly opened by brother-in-law of the Blue Star bungalow's owner. Prices at the restaurants were almost half that of Ubud. Our favourite restaurant was Sama-Sama which we visited twice - I liked the garlicky butter sauce prawns.

Blue Star bungalow

Prawns with garlicky butter sauce at Sama-Sama

It was peaceful bliss for a few days. Our taxi driver to  the airport on the last day was a young man who had just graduated from university and had written a Balinese song about an island boy moping for his Western girl who had left him. Ah bless.

View from our room

Watching the sunset

Bali: Ubud

I went to Bali for about a week recently with a friend. We went to Ubud and Amed, and skipped party-town Kuta.

Ubud was NICE. It was pretty, so clean and relaxing after India. People made an effort to make things look pretty, sticking flowers everywhere. I revelled in the almost no-hassle environment after India. So it took me a couple of days to realise how touristy Ubud was. There were many restaurants, shops, galleries and bungalows. But they all cater for tourists. As it was low-season, there were more shops than tourists when we were there. Prices were also pretty touristy.

I did a couple of yoga classes at the best yoga studio I've ever been to at the Yoga Barn. It was a wooden building with opened walls, breezes and sunlight. Perfect. Well, nearly except when the builders on an adjoining site started going with their hammers at 8am.

Outside performance space at the Yoga Barn

You can make trips around Ubud e.g. bicycle tours (my friend went on a good one with Bali on Bike) or trekking tours around the terraced paddy fields, and villages. There were also streets of craft e.g. bone-jewellery, wooden furniture makers outside of Ubud. Scooters seemed to be the preferred mode of travel. For the less adventurous, taxis are available at negotiated prices for day/half day/few hours trips.

Dirty Duck

Monkey Forest Road, almost attacked by a monkey near the Monkey Forest (again!)

Flower art

Daily offerings

Art centre

Waterlily pond

Banyan tree

Temple festival

Thus endeth my first trip to India!

Before I left for my trip to India, I had heard stories from people who had travelled there, had visited family or had come from there.

Knowing myself and my discomfort level threshold, and taking into account that the last time I did any sort of independent travelling in a developing country for an extended period of time was more than 10 years ago in China, I made provisions in case I wanted to cut short my Indian trip.

I had culture shock on initially arriving in Delhi and encountering pernicious scammers. It was harder than I thought it would be, especially not knowing who to trust. Things started to get a little better when I got some sage advice to 'take it slow'.

I had enjoyed the different experiences of travelling with a friend, spending time with myself, and joining a tour group by myself. It was wonderful sharing the adventure with a friend. I have also loved having time to myself where there was nothing I need to do; I read, reflected, walked on the beach, and saw my life from a much needed distance and perspective.

Joining a group was great because I didn't have the hassle of arranging any aspects of the trip. I saw a lot more in a shorter period of time than if I had travelled by myself. I would also have had to deal with more touts and hasslers. Mostly, I have enjoyed meeting other people who like to travel!

As for the country itself, I felt like I have only managed to have a whirlwind glimpse in 5 weeks. As one of our guides said, 'Indians like extremes -very loud, very spicy, very colourful and very wet (monsoons)'.

I have realised that I preferred being in the countryside, the mountains and the nature reserves to being in the cities. I preferred seeing people's daily lives to big, dead though beautiful monuments. In my limited experience, I have found the people of south India to be warmer than the north. South Indian climate and landscape reminds me of the tropical climate of home I have missed so much, except that durian trees could not be grown in south India.

I have seen the Taj Mahal, stunning scenery and wild elephants, rode on Indian trains and ate a lot of vegetarian thali meals. I have found India to be loud, crowded and filthy (especially the cities) but also vibrant, colourful, joyful and its people surprisingly warm and generous at unexpected times.

I have probably developed a better understanding of India and her people, though by no means a deep one. I know that I shall be curious about more aspects of India than I have been in the past.

I am happy to be home, be out of the energy-sapping summer heat and have my laundry done cleaner than ever. But when my inner gypsy awakens, as Christine puts it, there are still Himalayan mountains to see, Bengal tigers to spot, holy rivers to bathe in and many more people to meet.

Day 33: Kochi - last day in India

It rained in the morning. We had an Indian breakfast of idly and banana fritters. The youngest girl did a little dance for us. We said goodbye to the homestay family and got on a motorboat. The rain continued to spit and sputter. When it cleared, I got on the upper roof deck for the view. We passed by big riverside buildings that were schools and churches, people doing their washing in the river and houseboats tied together. There wasn't much river traffic until we got closer to the jetty, where Babu met us and drove us back to Casa Linda.

Downpour, Kerala backwaters

We had our last group lunch and discussed our trip highlight. It was interesting that everyone had different highlights. Mine was Periyar and the spice garden. We surprised Holly with a birthday cake. Christine had paid for and asked Ravi to organise it earlier. Holly was very surprised and seemed very pleased :-).

Happy birthday, Holly!

I had a hurried shower, repacked, and said my goodbyes. I shared a taxi with Holly and Karen to the airport. The others are leaving at different times or staying for another day or two.

We left plenty of time to catch our flights and arrived at the airport within the estimated 1.5 hours including traffic. We went to the international hall-they asked us to go to the domestic hall, and Holly and Karen were then asked to go back to international hall. As I was early, I waited 2 hours to check in. The Jet Airways 1.5 hours flight to Chennai was uneventful. At Chennai airport, I had to go to the international hall, wait for Jet Airways to bring my luggage from the domestic to the international hall, check in with my luggage at the Malaysian Airlines (MAS) counter, even though MAS has a code share with Jet Airways.

I then had a 3 hour wait for my 1am flight to Kuala Lumpur (KL). There was no air con in the waiting hall, only fans. I was very sleepy because of the late night and some medicine I had taken for my cold but I had to stay awake in case I miss the flight.

I felt such relief at stepping on to the MAS plane at 1am. I was almost home. I knew what to expect from a MAS flight. It would be clean. The service would be friendly and efficient. And it was. The chatty lead air stewardess chatted about independent travelling in India and getting tanned. I got fed but didn't sleep much on the 3.5 hours flight.

Landed at 7am KL time. Body and soul intact-checked. Passport and possessions intact-checked. Happy to be home-checked.

Day 32: Alleppey Backwaters Homestay

The Connemara tea plantation was named for an Irishman who helped tea grow near Periyar. The guide at the tea factory was from the tourism office and they only offered explanations in English and French. So the north Indian tourists nominated their own translator to translate into Hindi. This worked for about 5 minutes before it was decided we would go look at some slides instead.
There was a strong, not unpleasant smell of tea coming from the tea factory. We walked through the factory looking at the machines and some men engaged in the cleaning, grinding, fermentation and sorting of the tea powder. This was used for tea bags such as Tetley.

Connemara tea plantation

Tea plantations

We continued our drive down winding, hilly roads. The scenery wa beautiful with tea plantations hugging the hills. I soon got nauseous from the winding roads. Karen kindly swapped seats with me upfront and I felt better when we arrived in Alleppey just after 1pm.

We went on a public canoe to get across the river. The humidity was so high that my camera's lens was too fogged to take photos. We would be staying at the Green Palm Homes homestay that night. The rooms were nicer than what I expected from a homestay, with a balcony that wraps around the upper level and looks onto the river.

Green Palm Homes

Lunch was a delicious meal cooked by the grandma of our house - veg and fish fry. I sat by the river with Ravi and Lex for a while, eating a fresh slightly unripe mango that Ravi picked up from the ground.

After afternoon chai and biscuits, we set off an a leisurely nature walk around the small reclaimed island. It was clean and there were many photo opps. Ravi seemed quite happy there running around barefoot, climbing coconut trees, talking about swimming in the river taken unawares by the current. Thomas, our host and guide, talked about the planting of the paddy fields, pumping water out of the fields, how his ancestors came from the Western Ghats and worked with the local nomadic people to reclaim the land.

Houseboat in Kerala backwaters

Kerala backwaters

Canoe, Kerala backwaters

Path on Alleppey, Kerala backwaters

Kingfisher bird, Kerala backwaters

Catering boats, including pots and chairs

We then went on a canoe ride around the backwaters. That was something special. We saw kingfishers, flying ducks, birds, dragonflies. We saw dusk and sunset in those watery fields. Thomas and the boatman sang Malayalam folk songs. It was evocative of fishermen singing their ocean songs.

Sunset, Kerala backwaters

Paddy fields, Kerala backwaters

Dusk, Kerala backwaters

It was a good dinner with chicken and veg. Some of the guys went to watch the cricket IPL semis with Chennai v Delhi. Chennai won. I joined Stine and chatted with the grandma, and 2 young daughters - 9 year old Ann and 7 yr old Anina.

That night in our room, we had a visit from Harry, a palm- sized brown spider who burrowed into Stine's bag and couldn't be found later. Apparently there are no dangerous spiders there, so we rested easy. We chatted past midnight, slightly reluctant to go to bed on our last night on the tour.

Day 31: Periyar, Kerala (God's Own Country)

India had announced a fuel price hike the day before, and the Communist Party in Kerala had organised a strike in protest. Ravi warned us that we may not be able to drive in Kerala and would have to walk 10 minutes to our hotel, but that we would arrange for our big bags to be carried. I wasn't unduly bothered and was interested to see Indian lefty democracy in action.

On our drive, we passed by a group of brightly-dressed women working by a bridge. The government was keen to give women work and they are being paid Rs100 a day for a morning's light manual labour work for 5 days a week. Ravi's mother participated in the scheme but stopped last year. Ravi pointed out the supervisor in his dhoti, standing with his hands behind his back, 'making sure the work is done right', as Lex puts it. This got some indignant responses from our female group members. When we remarked that the work is also good for socialising, Ravi made the mistake of agreeing too readily saying that no secrets were kept for long in his village because 'the women talked to each other'.

Women doing government-sponsored light manual work

We stopped at a farmers' market which was held every Thursday. This was unlike the genteel, posh farmers markets in London, where an organic super-aubergine could go for GBP7, according to some friends. This was a market with all sorts of grains, fruits and vegetables. The harvest looked abundant, and the farmers relatively prosperous. Ravi said 'Quick, this is a good photo. Look, it's mostly men working here.' I later saw a postcard with 3 women working in a paddy field, and the supervisor standing in his dhoti under an umbrella. I bought it and gave it to Ravi.

Portrait of a market-stallkeeper

Does anyone know what the big green long vegetables are?

We drove up more hilly roads on the way to Thekkady, Periyar. My spirits lifted as the air got fresher and cooler and we were out of the city. The British has installed some large water pipes and a dam down the mountains.

View on way to Periyar

We arrived at the state border of Kerala, God's Own Country. The streets were empty and the shops were shut. Babu made some lengthy enquiries and it was decided we could drive on. We reached a roadblock manned by 3 or 4 men in dhotis. One waved for us to stop, another waved for us to go on. Ravi got down, made more enquiries, he obviously had some pull, and we drove on to our hotel, Michaels Inn.

I had been fasting all day, ok well, only since breakfast, for my Ayurveda massage. Stine and I both had a 60-minute massage for Rs800. Ravi walked us to the shop which was shut from the front. The shopkeeper walked us round the back and led us to the massage rooms. It was a male to male and female to female massage. Our masseurs were tiny 20-year old Keralan girls with 2 or 3 years experience. They didn't quite have the strength to unknot our muscles but they got the circulation going nicely. We were drenched in herbal oil and were not meant to shower for an hour afterwards.

After a quick chicken noodles lunch and shower, and dosing myself with mosquito repellent, we went to visit a spice garden. Our local guide Prashad was cheerful and smiley, and ran a spice shop in town. The spice garden we visited was owned and run by 3 families. Normal upkeep work is done by the family members while harvesting requires 25-30 labourers a day. We walked along the little lanes and saw and learnt about cardamons, cloves, turmeric, cinnamon bark, basil, all spice. There were beautiful flowers and we took lots of photos. The garden or orchard, as it's definitely larger than an average garden, was well-kept but not manicured. It combines the look of the wild English garden I've always preferred to the manicured French garden, with the tropical plants I have missed in my years in London.

Spice garden/plantation

Papaya tree

Banana flower

Cardamon plants

Dan remarked that this didn't feel like India. Well, it didn't, until you saw the elephant in the backyard. This spice walk was possibly my favourite part of my South India tour. It was nothing ostentatious and grand, it was simple natural beauty. I could so imagine wanting to have an orchard like this, sans the elephant.

Back in town, Christine and I made a quick visit to Prashad's shop. We didn't end up buying very much, but he was courteous and helpful although all we bought were some postcards, water and soap. As we waited to go to the Kalaripayat Keralan martial arts show, I watched the sunset from the hotel. It was a gentle sunset with soft pink sky. The martial arts show was at a theatre 2 minutes' walk from our hotel. We packed into the upstairs seating area with many other Indian tourists, and the show was down into the arena. The show must be choreographed but it still looks pretty intense. There were a variety of fights with barehand, piece of cloth, long sticks, daggers and swords. There were also body control demonstrations, flip-jumping from a level up, and impressive jumping through fire hoops. It was pretty spectacular and I think we all enjoyed it. There was an incident when one of the weapons' tails flew up and hit a little girl in the face, but I think she was all right. We took our group photos down in the arena with the martial arts practitioners.

Kalaripayat martial arts

Jumping through double fire hoops at Kalaripayat martial arts show

We did some quick shopping and browsing in a bookshop and a craft shop. I ended up buying a recipe book, and negotiated a good price for a pair of silver earrings, my biggest purchase of the trip, which costs around 20 British pounds. The shopkeeper was from Kashmir and has a brother working in IT at the Petronas twin towers in KL. His brother has asked him to go to KL, as there are many Muslims there and the weather etc is similar to South India, and he's contemplating the cost of setting up a shop there.

Dinner was a buffet with vegetarian and meat dishes and was pretty good. I had quite a late night as I repacked my bags for our homestay tomorrow, and updated more of my blog. I didn't feel as tired as I thought I would though. This was very possibly my favourite day of the tour, as I did the beautiful spice walk, did different things, was at a beautiful place and really felt like I met some genuinely nice people in this town.

Day 30 special mention: Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai

Inspirational exhibition about India's century-long struggle for independence from British imperialism. We saw the blood-stained dhoti Gandhi was wearing when he was killed. Particularly affecting was seeing the small round Harry Potter-esque glasses he wore.

If I could speak to Gandhi, I would ask if he ever had any doubts. Doubts about his convictions and knowing which path to take? He was after all only a blood and flesh man. He had chosen a long and difficult road and must have felt quite alone at times. He might have gained strength from what Thoreau wrote, 'any man more right than his neighbours, constitutes a majority of one already'.

What was striking was that the freedom fight had many different leaders and activists playing different roles.

The visit served as a timely reminder that people throughout the ages and around the world recognises injustice when it happens and have always strived for freedom when they have been repressed by unjust laws.

Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai

'We want freedom of thought...'

'At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.' ~ Nehru

'Generations to come it may be will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.' ~ Albert Einstein on Mahatma Gandhi

Day 30: Madurai

Madurai is a very old city that has been in existence since 3 or 4 BC. We took a cycle-rickshaw tour in the morning. We went through areas resembling small towns where people were busy cleaning their homes and drawing the chalk welcome flowery patterns on the floor of their doorway.

On the cycle rickshaw across the dry river

We had a local guide, Prabu, for the Sri Meenakshi temple and Thirumalai Nayak palace. Our guide was a classical dancer and was happy to dance at the drop of a song. He said his nickname was Hippie Prabu because he was very good with the hip movements in his dancing. The temple was a huge complex with 5 towers and many monolithic statues. It was very popular for weddings and we saw quite a few brides and grooms dressed up in their ornate finery and looking mostly pretty, happy and hopeful.

Sri Meenakshi temple

1000 Pillars Hall at Sri Meenakshi temple

Beautiful, happy bride at Sri Meenakshi Temple

Statue of the goddess Saraswati, the goddess of learning. One of many monolithic (carved from a single piece of stone) statues in the Sri Meenakshi temple compound.

The palace was not as impressive with birds being the main current residents. It was being used as an occassional performance space.

Thirumalai Nayak palace

On the way back we stopped at a banana market and went pass other market stalls. The stalls were abundant with fresh fruit and vegetables. Our rickshaw driver pointed out a Hanuman, monkey god, temple, which was not as prevalent as those of the big 2 - Vishnu, Shiva.

Bananas wholesale market

Onions street

Christine, Lex, Stine and I had veggie thali meal at the most local place and definitely cheapest I've tried so far, Rajeswari round the corner from our hotel. It was good and straightforward service, nothing fancy.

Local thali meal at Rajeswari

Afternoon excursion was to the Gandhi museum, mentioned in next entry. Dinner was at the hotel downstairs restaurant. Tandoori platter was massive. I fell asleep to Chennai Super Kings vs. Mumbai something-or-other in the IPL's quarterfinal with Christine helpfully explaining certain cricketing rules to me. IPL is Indian Premier League for cricket played in April and May every year. It's new, glamorous and has provided another outlet for the country's passion for cricket.

I quite liked Madurai, and preferred seeing the streets and shops for a flavour of local life to the big monuments.