Calcutta

Well after train, plane, taxi, rickshaw, motorcycle, ferry, houseboat and bus, we've discovered why people lose it here: the airports.

We had an insane day yesterday/today.

The highlights:
Morning swim in the ocean.
Wood fired pizza and sandwich with homemade bread and mayo.
Oldest church in India.
Oldest synagogue in India (on the first day of Hanukkah, no less).
Found out we got to the airport 4 hours before our flight (tricky military time screwing us up. It said 9pm and I'm so used to 19:00 I thought we flew at 7 when our flight was at 9).
Very angry boyfriend.
JD tried to get a beer in the international terminal and security wouldn't let him back in without a major inquisition and talking to 5 different people.
Getting a hotel for our 12am-4am layover in Chennai.
Taxi told us there were non-AC rooms available before we went to hotel.
There were not.
Paying $26 for 3.5 hours of sleep and a shower. Totally worth it.
JD got them to bring him a beer. It was warm, and 'Commando' brand with a guy with a machine gun on the front, see picture.
Waking up our wake up call.
Taxi driver fell asleep while driving, nearly ran us into cement wall on way to terminal.
Jumped the security queue in order to very barely make the plane.
Security wouldn't give me a stamp for my carry on so I had to run back and plead with this woman.
JD was stuck in security until 3 min before the flight.
After flight, security guy wouldn't let us off the plane until we showed him our boarding passes for a sixth time.
Prepaid taxi stand in Calcutta quotes us 210r initially, then 320 when we come back after a quick coffee.

I mean. We were exasperated. But Calcutta is nice. Busy, loud, but it feels good. We had some delicious street food: fried dough with meat curry stew, grilled bread with fried egg on the side and onion and peppers, cardamom chai. Baskin Robbins.

Now we're at what seems to be a very popular hidden English hotel called Fairlawn Hotel, and every table is full of English people drinking tea, complete with embroidered tea cozies. We paid a whopping $5 for Internet, far and away the most yet, and we've somehow convinced them to hold our bags for the next 5 hours while we wander before our train tonight.

Kerala days 2 and 3

(Written Saturday.)

Yesterday was another long day of lounging on the houseboat. It was cool and beautiful and restful, but I'm glad to be back on land. The delicious food we ate on night 1 was more or less the same lunch and same dinner we had the next day. No more coconut!

Today we took the most quintessentially Indian bus to kochi. We literally waited an hour or more to find a bus with enough space for us and our bags. There was a big crowd and every time a bus would come, every few minutes, a very few people would get off before 15-20 crammed on through the in and out doors. Finally we just jammed ourselves on and I stood for over an hour of the 2 hour journey, crammed up against fellow sweaty travelers.

After that we took refuge in this chain we keep seeing, Cafe Coffee Day. We had a coffee, strawberry shake and a chicken tikka masala sandwich. The air conditioning was the very best part, but my shake was good. Kind of nesquickish.

This afternoon we jumped on a ten cent ferry to a little island where we checked in to a beach hotel with our own little building and AC. It's an extra $20 for AC and all worth it. It is so swampy.

We spent the evening playing in waves. There were zero foreigners swimming on the beach so me in my black bikini was causing quite a stir. I counted six grown men taking pictures. Teenagers yelled 'what's your good name' across the water and little kids came to ask where we were from. When I walked a few feet across the shore in my bathing suit, men and women gave me the 'tss tss' sound they give dogs to shoo them. Some were smiling, some noticeably displeased.

JD made a spiral-shaped sand castle that I decorated with tiny white shells and then he turned in to the center of attention. Everyone who walked by took a picture and asked what it was. Sandcastles aren't big on this beach I guess.

Fresh orange and watermelon juice tonight with ice cream before bed. Flying to chennai tomorrow and then we have a layover from 11 pm to 5am (how fun will that be?!) before we arrive in Calcutta and then on to Varanasi where bodies are burned in the Ganges.

Kerala day 1

Kerala has been a bit of a mixed bag. Our trip here was really good. We met two Americans on their honeymoon, Joe and Kira, and ended up sleeping in the same train compartment. They already had plans but it would have been fun to keep going with them. They were really relaxed and fun. Northern Californians.

We got to alleppey, I had a chocolate milkshake that just made me sooo happy in such a hot place, and we had lunch in a small cafe. Everyone around us was eating huge plates of rice with soup mixed in and chutneys, turning it over and over in their hand before a quick swoop into their mouths. JD and I had noodles and 'alleppey chicken' that took foreeeever to come out because no one ever orders anything but the special. They had maybe 20 premade plates of it ready to go out stacked up on the counter.

Anyway then we did what the book told us not to do: got in a taxi, picked up the drivers friend and were taken to his houseboat. So we're in alleppey because they have these awesome houseboats and you hire one for a day of two and they have a staff that drives you and cooks for you. Our plan was to get to the dock to negotiate with all of the drivers at once. But that didn't happen. We were left dealing with this guy who JD hated because he kicked a puppy out of our way. It kind of spoiled the afternoon. Anyway we negotiated and set sail in the evening.

It's been great though. Our crew stopped and we bought some freshwater prawns from a little shack. They made us a feast for dinner of chicken and four or five dishes with coconut in everything served on pretty cut glass plates.

Our boat has a living room with a couch and two matching chairs in front and a glass dining room table behind it. The wall has a pretty blue painting. Our room has a big bed, funny green wallpaper with raindrops on it, AC from 9pm to 6pm and a bathroom with a shower.

We switched drivers overnight and now we have a man who speaks English which is nice. He's letting jd drive the boat now. Feels good to be able to communicate and not just mime with the crew. Last night we had a little scare when we thought there was no dinner. We tried to ask but didn't get anywhere.

Cruising along the canals today. It's beautiful and fun to see the different houseboats around us. The biggest have 20 rooms or so and look like floating apartment complexes. They all have kind of thatched looking roofs and real windows. Different boats have one or two stories and various lounge combos. I like ours. Even though its really warm and swampy like Florida, the breeze feels good.

Palolem day 3

Well we're a little bit bummed to leave palolem but we've heard Kerala is also beautiful and not to be missed so we're packing up and heading further south. I'm wondering how hot it'll be since palolem is pretty toasty in the 90s or so. We brought all kinds of cold weather clothing but I've bought a few cotton tops for the beach.

Yesterday we lounged again all day and this time had grilled tuna BBQ on the beach. Very delicious. $8 for the two of us. JD has been drinking kings beer which is local Goan beer. I've stuck mostly to banana lassis. They also have lime soda which is fresh like juice with sprite mixed in and you can get it sweet or salted. I tried salted once but we prefer sweet. Locals giggle when I order sweet. Maybe only kids get it?

And we've eaten our weight in garlic naan. It's so cheap and filling and just delicious. And it's flakier than naan at home.

Last night we had a whole lot of fun chatting with three Brits. Two brothers and one other man. They're all from the Bristol area and had fun ribbing each other about town rivalries that went completely over our heads. One of the brothers works in programming and the other is a forklift operator at a brewery. The forklift one, forget his name, had a good chunk of his ear missing and he told us it had been bitten off by a lesbian on crutches apparently. Can't make that stuff up.

I explained what Facebook was to the third man, who's 55 and on vacation for 2 weeks. He told us about this brutish guy who has been conning people out of money at our cocohut complex and to stay clear of him. He said Brits are all about being gentlemen so he's embarrassed the guy is doing that.

Lunch and then we're on the move!

Palolem

When people tell you India is crazy and overwhelming and you're insane for going, they don't know about palolem. Its in the far south part of Goa. It feels just like koh tao, Thailand. It's relaxed.

We're on a crescent shaped beach, lined with restaurants with 50 cent butter naan, $3 main dishes of tikka masala or tandoori something or Chinese style stir fry or burgers or Italian. For breakfast we had fried eggs, toast, stir fried potatoes with spices and garlic and green pepper, tea. All for less than $4.

JD wants to note that there are beautiful girls everywhere. Unlike north Goa where we were yesterday, there are lots of families from Britain with small children here. North Goa was all Russians. There are a bunch here too though. Blonde. Super tan. Kind of odd hair cuts. What is it with europeans and mullets? I wonder how these people get so tan. It's like they're professional sunbathers the way their skin is so deep brown.

Today we swam out to a rock, lounged on the beach and had a grilled shark on the beach for dinner. JD hadn't stopped talking about it since we discovered BBQ on the beach just after we had already eaten last night. It was sooo yummy. We picked out a small one. They keep all kinds of fish on ice and you choose yours and they grill it with all sorts of spices.

It's been nice to unwind and read and just hang out with minimal tourist onslaught. We bought a few things today. I found the same printed sarongs I bought in Thailand and they are the best things. Worth all of the space they'll take up in my bag.

Fun facts: So far we've eaten about half the snacks (we brought literally 50 granola bars and maybe 30 packages of fruit snacks which are such a life saver when I get cranky with hunger and exhaustion.)

We've used 3/4 of a roll of toilet paper and like 6 or 7 packs of wet wipes. I need to google how you're supposed to use the hose and bucket. Lots of unanswered questions there. And if you've been with me since Taiwan you'll be pleased to hear I was actually kind of happy to see the squat toilet again for the first time. I don't really want to say fond memories? But makes me happy to be back in Asia. (The first time I saw one when I first got to Taiwan, I burst into tears. Weird combo of jet lag and general culture shock I think.)

Beer on the beach and then bed.

Goa

I'm sitting on a beachfront restaurant porch beside a shoulder-length haired hipster with an ironic mustache and neon Nike running shorts and his dreadlocked girlfriend, looking out at a family, decked out in tourist trap clothing, straw hats and oversized nikons hanging around their necks, being shown the beach by an Indian man dressed in ironed white pants and a white polo shirt, while the resident 3 legged beach dog hobbles by them.

Meanwhile I'm drinking fresh orange juice after a delicious banana pancake and reading a really wonderful travel book about India written by a sarcastic Australian woman who explains the idiosyncrasies of India perfectly. Waiting for JD to wake up so we can eat real breakfast since I only found 90 rupees in my early morning search around our hut, trying not to wake him up.

Half way wrap up

In reading through previous posts I realize how much time I've spent talking about getting to places and not that much about what we do when we're there.

Delhi really was all about planning for future travel but the second time, we did see quite a bit. We went to a very strange giant sundial and the India gate, which would remind you of the arc d'triumph a bit. I got hoodwinked by this young girl who started drawing henna designs on my hand before I had a chance to say no. Our driver was horrified at how much I paid her relative to what we were paying him, so JD more than made up for the difference.

In rishikesh, cows dominated the tiny lanes of the alleys and men in orange robes asked for rupees. The streets were lined with vendors selling their wares: powder bindi guy, things made out of wood, papadum cooked over charcoal, pashminas and genie pants. Restaurants clung to the hillside on either side of the river and there was a footbridge on either end that frequently had motorbikes, people, cows and monkeys all jockeying to get across. Our favorite was the man who was ever-present in our hotel, serving us chai and bruschetta.

Udaipur was another water-lined city, but the lake was big and open. The shops all felt a little bit the same and the guys trying to sell you stuff would always lure you with a hello, I just want to show you my shop, you don't have to buy. Lots of suit shops, tiny handmade paintings, leather goods and rooftop terraces all showing octopussy nightly. Cows and dogs there didn't seem as loved as rishikesh. We saw lots of them eating trash. Now instead of bargaining for a few hundred rupees (55r = $1), you were aiming for half of the original price.

Mumbai was big and felt European once we settled in the banking district. We hung out in a park for an hour while the sun went down and ate at one of India's staple 'all veg' restaurants. They all have pizza, Chinese food, veg burgers and a selection of Indian staples, mostly centered around paneer.

People have all been extremely kind to us. JD can make friends with anyone. After 10 min they all tell us to call them if we need anything and to let us know when we're back. Like Taiwan, when you're lost or looking for something, more than half the time, someone just walks you there or asks lots of strangers on the street for help. My strategy is to look for modern looking women or guys with a smartphone.

Food-wise, we started off timid but have been pretty trusting since. When my stomach was upset I survived on toast and scrambled eggs, but we've had a fair bit of street food and train food. My fav is the spicy mango pickle.. which is oddly exaaactly like the kind you get at Indian grocery stores at home. Today on the train we had fried bananas, veg and chicken briyani which is just rice. And JD samples the chai everywhere we go. My fav was still in rishikesh. It's gotten much less sweet lately. Although the kind we had on the train today tasted like marshmallow.

Anyway it's been fun, stressful at times. The fact that JD and I have no way to communicate when we aren't in sight of each other makes me feel panicky sometimes. But overall we've loved it. Everyone we meet is very fascinated that we work in politics and have been overjoyed to talk about Obama. We both get lots of stares. It's been fun. Half way done and lots left to do.